30 July 2017

It was time to make another field ready piece of gear. Please, allow me to introduce the new Field Cover for the Rite in the Rain 4"x6" Notebook (Item# 946 or 946T) (NSN 7530-01-498-2078 or NSN 7530-01-505-3660). I was able to design and make this proto-type in less than 3 hours from start to photos.

Fabric requirements were minimal. They will all come from the same 13"x9" piece. The main body was 13" tall x 5" wide at the top, where as the bottom 6" is 9" wide. The scrap from the top left becomes the 4"x4" pen-holder and the 5"x2.5" Top insert to hold the top of the notebook. The bottom 5"x3" insert was made from clear plastic.

I used a fair amount of 2" loop fabric to aid in attaching morale patches. 2x 4", 1x 5" and a 2" piece of 2" loop. I also incorporated a webbing strap with a 1" snaphook to make attaching the field cover to your vest, pack or drag-bag that much easier.

Construction was straight forward. 1) Measure and chalk the fabric. Cut out the pieces. (I did not make a pattern for this project.)

4) Attach the 1"x3" piece of hook to the outside. Hook side facing up.

5) Starting with the lower (loop side) of the 1" webbing, attach to the centre bottom of the back panel. Build the top 1" webbing (hook side) by first folding the webbing, inserting the 1" snaphook and sewing a straight stitch across to hold the snaphook in place for sewing onto the field cover. Overlap the hook tape over the loop tape and sew through the seam below the snaphook. If desired, extra seams can be added below the snaphook.

6) Finish the field cover by sewing 3/4" seam tape around the perimeter of the project. Remember to take your time on the corners. Turn over and ensure the seam tape is not missing any stitches on the other side. If it is, just double up on those areas.

A Model Emergency Preparedness Community

We live in interesting times.......honest observation or old Chinese curse. Regardless, we do live in very interesting times - natural disasters, extreme weather, man-made crises, war, economic uncertainty....there is no limit to the source of interesting.

Now, some on planet Earth are better situated to adapt to these challenges, as they live or work in areas that routinely experience weather extremes, wildfires, earthquakes, sour gas leaks or oil spills. By living with these events on a semi-regular basis you create mitigation techniques to adapt or you abandon your home, your living, your friends and you go to an easier location.

Like those who chose to make a living in Tornado Alley, the people of High River, Alberta, are also challenged by seasonal weather conditions - although tornadoes do occur, they do not occur as often as flooding. This is a small prairie community with a high plains river running through it. The geographical feature that challenges the greatest with a high plains river system occurs when high water levels exceed the river banks to water flow out onto the prairie. Unlike, a river system confined by hills or mountains, on the high prairie once the water gets to high there are no natural features to confine the waters.

In 2013, a large portion of Southern Alberta bore witness to extreme flooding conditions. Discovered after the event, the volume of water in the Highwood River system in June 2013 was as great as the floods of 1995 & 2005 added together. These conditions were not recorded at this level ever in the past 100 years. How do people living in these conditions continue to stay,?? When others say you must move.

The short answer is community. High River has a true sense on community. Even residents who do not know each other, are still friendly to each other. With about 13,000 citizens in the town, it is truly difficult to say if this sense of community is due only to the small population or if there is something greater that binds the people of High River together. The local economy revolves around agriculture, however, many residents do make the daily commute to the city of Calgary for employment reasons. This is done out of necessity not by the choice of trying to escape the small town. I guess that is a favourable reason for being a citizen of High River......close enough to the city to enjoy the luxuries, but far enough away that the city does not follow you home.

The more indepth answer, still revolves around community. In recent years, post-2013, a number of strategic defensive devices have been constructed to defend the town of High River from future flood events. But, dykes and berms are not enough. The people have to be engaged. An involved citizenry is the only way for a community to sustain itself in hostile conditions. When the people take part in their community, an active part in their community, then & only then; can the community become stronger. A strong community can weather any hazard, and after, it is only a community that can pull together and help each other to rebuild that which has been lost, albeit temporarily. In a community that has a sense of itself, with citizens (who of their own free will) want to help make the community stronger; you will only require a bit of leadership and regular training commitment from civic authorities. Training and training resources only make a difference if there is a will to make a difference. Yet, the will power alone will eventually run out of steam. So, at the heart of any successful emergency preparedness program will be a strong community.

So, if I understand the rules correctly at STEEMIT, I can repost my own stories after they have been posted on STEEMIT.

15 July 2017

This has been a big learning year so far for me. I have expanded outside my comfort bubble of blogging on Blogger and have learned to build my own website with a little help from WIX.com. Then, I became educated on WICKR ME messaging and now I am off to be a pioneer user of STEEMIT.

Even after a few days I still am not 100% sure how to explain STEEMIT dot com....but, I will do the best I can with what I have learned thus far. Understand, I could be wrong and if I learn I have written anything incorrectly, I will post an update to acknowledge the new information I have found. So, the short answer is STEEMIT is a social networking system where the users control the direction.

The first competition that STEEMIT will surpass will be Facebook. The primary reason for that is FB uses the users to earn advertising income for FB. On STEEMIT, the users earn their share of this income. Of course, this income is paid in cryptocurrency and through a process it can be converted to fiat currency or to your PayPal account. Please, go to STEEMIT to learn more about this part, I still have not had any personal experience in this part of the system.

So, I believe I should offer a bit more of what I do understand or can surmise from my first few days of exploring STEEMIT. This is new technology, break edge technology. But, like any other system of knowledge or technology - it has to start somewhere. There is a financial component to this as well, and those who get in at the start are most likely to see the greatest return for their participation and time invested. But, STEEMIT is greater than just financial gain.....this is a place for the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and wisdom. A place where those with great/good ideas will thrive and those who are pretenders, plagiarizer, cheats, thieves or soulless scoundrels will be corrected by the crowd or driven from the site. So, trolls and shit-disturbers will not likely find a comfortable stay on STEEMIT.

So, who is currently on STEEMIT.......I would say the 80/20 rule applies here. 80% of the current users are very tech savvy - programmers, coders, and probably a few hackers, too. This 80% is needed to get this working and working well. I assume due to the security measures I have been through, that security is designed by those who use their skills to defeat security protocols. The other 20% is made up by thrill seeking explorers who have to be first on everything, they make up say 15% and the last 5% is the group of everyday users who just happen to get invited early. I put myself in this last group. I am too far removed from the cutting edge of tech to be a creator at that level. However, I have been around long enough to recognize a glimpse into the future and know I want to be on that ship as it sails.

That ship is about to sail, I am now on-board. This is what I see for the future of this trip.....this tech is about to reach the tipping point. The tipping point is when this new technology becomes main stream - like FB, Instagram, Pinterest, Tripadvisor, etc, etc. From an investor point-of-view, the tipping point is when the profits start to rise for the pioneers who are there at the start. In less than 3 years from now the numbers will change, 80% of the users will be everyday joes and 20% will be the tech savvy.

So, if you want to be a part of a social networking and don't want some billionaire to get richer on your hard work, then you owe it to yourself to get in on the ground floor of STEEMIT.

The signup process is longer but more secure than most social media sites. You will need an email address and a phone that receives text messages. Take your time to select a user name, your account is linked to it. This site wants new material to be posted. Slow and steady is what I am learning is the best approach. Read more than you write. Be polite to other users. Exchanges ideas or points-of-view but do not come to change the world to accept only your point-of-view.

I am using a business persona on STEEMIT and thus my user name: @satasco2017

I hope to see you on the other side. Here is the link to STEEMIT: steemit.com

9 July 2017

Today,
we will explore scheduling a fire piquet/security piquet at your
bugout location and what will factor into an effective program with
the available resources at your command.

There
are many factors that will impact the effectiveness of your fire
piquet/security piquet program at your BOL. Not-the-least of which,
is how many persons can you muster for piquet duty?? The next most
limiting factor is, in how many directions does your piquet need to
keep a watch on?? I am assuming that all BOL's want/need 24 hour
coverage a day, every day.

This
first chart will show how many, can control, for how long. One note:
The final column shows the maximum number of OP/LP's (observation
post/listening post) that can be manned at minimum levels; the
duration when maxed out is only for days, at most.

Chart 1

As
you can see in this chart, when you have only a few persons to
provide security for your BOL, you will not last very long before a
lack of sleep/recovery will make all of you very vulnerable. You
either need to increase your numbers of persons or limit the number
of directions that must be observed and/or defended. Mutual aid
agreements with neighbours or being a part of a community may offer
solutions to very small groups.

To
help visualize this process I have drawn a simple map (below) which
has a small town or village that is located near a more major
roadway. For the ease of labeling the main road runs North/South. The
town/village is entered from the North and exited from the South.

To
protect a town like this will require 3 security teams. I will
provide 2 staffing options for each of the three teams and provide
sample schedules to man the required positions. As this is a sample
with no known real example, this will be a pure planning exercise and
those leaders out there who will have to use these samples,
understand that you will have to mold these samples into your
reality. Understand the concepts and you can adapt these ideas to fit
your needs.

First
questions for this exercise: What will I need to provide an effective
fire piquet and security piquet?? How many persons do I require??
Where do we place them?? Who will control them?? How do I schedule
for this??

Welcome to Sample Town,
population 350.

Map of Sample Town

Criteria
for an Effective Fire Piquet/Security Piquet Program:

General Alarm – Some
means of signaling danger to the town. “Stand To”

Two Complete Security
Teams/Shifts – one on-duty, the other off-duty

Equal days on-duty to
days off-duty

Minimum two man teams
at night. Avoid solo posts at night

Maximum control
through minimum posts (OP/LP, Checkpoints, CP, Etc)

Command the terrain.
Use natural topography and man-made obstacles to drive invaders to
where you can observe them before they observe you. Create “NO GO
ZONES” coloured red on our map of Sample Town – between the
major roadway and the access road to town.

Team structure: Team
IC & Team 2IC will be (12 hours on/12 hours off)

Team members hours
will depend on the total number available.

Allow the Team Leader
(IC) to build and manage their team. Only intervene if the members
of the team cannot bond. Remember the four stages of team
development Forming/Storming/Norming/Performing. Not all team reach
the Performing stage.

Maximize the strengths
of individuals when designing the teams. However, the ability to
work together is more important in the long run than a collection of
perfect individuals working towards their own goals.

Keep internal patterns
consistent and predictable. 4 on/4 off. Night Owls on nightshifts,
early birds on day shifts. Of course, operational requirements like
a small fire in Sample Town would require all hands on deck to
prevent the fire from destroying the whole town.

Operational patterns,
those that can be observed by spies, want to seem as random as
possible so that infiltration cannot occur without observation.
Infiltration is easier to deal with, even if the infiltrator gets
inside, when you know you have been infiltrated. Prevented is
preferred, but dealt with will work, too.

Develop Post Orders
for each location that will be manned. It must be written in enough
detail that a new person at that post can read through the orders
and learn the job, in the event that there is no one there to
training them what to do. What do I do at this post?? Primary
functions?? Who do I contact if something goes wrong?? What is the
alarm signal in the event of a fire/tornado/invasion?? Where is the
alarm located?? What is the shift relieve procedure?? What if I am
not relieved?? Are patrols out?? What is the password to let them
back in??

Maintain a log at each
post. Record time/date of shift changes. Status reports. Observation
of unusual events. Patterns may occur but will only be recognized
when reviewing well kept logs.

What
does our manpower requirements look like:

Table 2 - Team One

Table 3 - Team Two

Table 4 - Team Three

Table 5 - Total Requirement

OP/LP's

Always has 2x Team Members.

At shift rotation, the Team Members from the CP or Checkpoint come to the OP/LP to relieve those on-duty. Off-duty persons return to CP or Checkpoint.

Checkpoints

All Team Members live/rest in the Check Point Bunker.

When “Stand To” alarm sounded, ALL Team Members respond

Maximum 4 On/4 Off schedule (Shift One/Shift Two)

Challenge anyone who approaches the checkpoint

Check-in with the Command Post (CP) every 30 Minutes

Sample Schedule 1

Sample Schedule 2

Sample Schedule 3

Sample Schedule 4

Similar
to Teams One & Two, Team Three will live in the bunker at the
Command Post. When not on-duty, Team Three will sleep, eat, rest near
the CP. When needed, Team Members will work the CP, whether scheduled
or not.

So, there you have
it.....a basic understanding of scheduling for fire protect and
security at your bugout location. If you want to minimize hazards and
risks at your BOL you will adopt some sort of fire
protection/security protection program. In the event of SHTF or
TEOTWAWKI, this WILL be your insurance program. It will be paid in
hours served not in dollars & cents. The new economy will not
have fiat currency.